people on this auspicious occasion? The most obvious, and I believe the most important, are comprised in two words; and to them I shall confine my observations: public improvements, and public instruction. These two objects, though distinct in the organization which they will require, are so similar in their effects, that Most of the arguments that will apply to one, will apply equally to both. They are both necessary to the preservation of our principles of government; they are both necessary to the support of the sysTem into which those principles are wrought, the system we now enjoy; they are each of them essential, perhaps in an equal degree, to the perfecting of that system, to our perceiving and preparing the ameliorations of which it is suscepti ble. I shall dwell exclusively on these two objects, not because they are the only ones that might be pointed out, but because their importance, their immediate and pressing importance, seems to bave been less attended to, and probably less understood, than it ought to have been among the general concerns of the Union.

Public improvements, such as roads, bridges, and canals, are usually considered only in a commercial and economical point of light; they ought likewise to be regarded in a moral and political light. Cast your eyes over the surface of our dominion, with a view to its vast extent; with a view to its present and approaching state of population; with a view to the different habits, manners, languages, origin, morals, maxims of the people; with a view to the nature of those ties, those political, artificial ties, which hold them together as one people, and which are to be relied upon to continue to hold them together as one people, when their number shall rise to hundreds of millions of freemen, possessing the spirit of independence that becomes their station. What anxiety, what solicitude, what painful apprehensions, must naturally crowd upon the mind for the continuance of such a government, stretching its thin texture over such a country, and in the hands of such a people! The prospect is awful; the object, if attainable, is magnificent beyond comparison; but the dif ficulty of attaining it, and the danger of losing it, are sufficient to cloud the prospect in the eyes of many respectable citizens, and force them to despair. Despair in this case, to an ardent spirit de-, voted to the best good of his country, is a distressing state indeed. To despair of preserving the federal union of these

republics, for an indefinite length of time, without a dismemberment, is to lose the highest hopes of human society, the greatest promise of bettering its condition that the efforts of all generations have produced. The man of seusibility who can contemplate without horror the dismemberment of this empire, has not well considered its effects. And yet Iscarcely mingle in society for a day without hearing it predicted, and the prediction uttered with a levity bordering on indifference; and that too by well-disposed men of every political party. Hence I conclude, that the subject has not been examined with the attention it deserves.

I am not yet so unhappy as to believe in this prediction; but I should be forced to believe in it if I did not anticipate the use of other means than those we have yet employed to perpetuate the union of the States.

incans.

They must not be coercive Such ones, in most cases, would produce effects directly the reverse of what would be intended. Our policy does not admit of standing armies; and if it did, we could not maintain them sufficiently numerous to restrain great bodies of freemen with arms in their hands, blinded by ignorance, heated by zeal, and led by factious chiefs; and if we could maintain them strong enough for that purpose, we all know they would very Soon overturn the government they were intended to support.

With as little prospect of success could we rely upon legislative means; that is, upon laws against treason and iisde meanor, or any other chapter of the criminal code. Such laws may sometimes intimidate a chief of rebels, or a few unsupported uaitors. But a whole geographical district of rebels, half a nation of traitors, would legislate against you. They would throw your laws into one scale and their own into the other, and toss in their bayonets to turn the balance.

No, the means to be relied upon to hold this beneficent union together, must apply directly to the interest and convenience of the people; they must, at the same time, enable them to discern that interest and be sensible of that convenience. The people must become habituated to enjoy a visible, palpable, incontestable good; a greater good than they could promise themselves from any change. They must have information enough to perceive it, to reason upon it, to know why they enjoy it, whence it flows, how it was attained, how it is to be preserved, and how it may be lost, The people of these States must be edu

cated

cated for their station, as members of the great community. They must receive a republican education; be taught the duties and the rights of freemen; that is, of American freemen, not the freemen that are so by starts, by frenzy, and in mobs, who would fill the forum at the nod of Clodius, or the prytaneum at that of Cleon; nor the freemen of one day in seven years, who would rush together for sale at the hustings of Brentford, and clamor and bludgeon for a man whose principles and person were to them alike unknown and unregarded.

Each American freeman is an integral member of the sovereignty; he is a coestate of the empire, carrying on its government by his delegates. The first right he possesses, after that of breathing the vital air, is the right of being taught the management of the power to which he is born. It is a serious duty of the society towards him, an unquestionable right of the individual from the society. In a monarchy the education of the prince is justly deemed a concern of the nation. It is done at their expense; and why is it so it is because they are deeply interested in his being well educated, that he may be able to administer the government well, to conduct the concerns of the nation wisely, on their own constitutional principles. My friends, is it not even more important that our princes, our millions of princes, should be educated for their station, than the single prince of a monarchy? If a single prince goes wrong, obstinately and incurably wrong, he may be set aside for another, without overturning the state. But if our sovereigns in their multitudinous exercise of power, should become obstinate and incurable in wrong, you cannot set them aside. But they will set you aside; they will set theinselves aside; they will crush the state, and convulse the nation. The result is military despotism, dişmem berment of the great republic, and, after a sufficient course of devastation by civil wars, the settlement of a few ferocious monarchies, prepared to act over again the same degrading scenes of mutual encroachment and vindictive war, which disgrace modern Europe; and from which many writers have told us, that mankind are never to be free.

Our habits of thinking, and even of reasoning, it must be confessed, are still borrowed from feudal principles and monarchical establishments. As a nation we are not up to our circumstances. Our principles in the abstract, as wrought into

our state and federal constitutions, are in general worthy of the highest praise; they do honor to the human intellect. But the practical tone and tension of our minds do not well correspond with those principles. We are like a person conversing in a foreign language, whose idiom is not yet familiar to him. He thinks in his own native language, and is obliged to translate as he talks; which gives a stiffness to his discourse, and betrays a certain embarrassment which nothing can remove but frequent exercise and long practice. We are accustomed to speak and reason relative to the people's education, precisely like the aristocratical subjects of a European monarchy. Some say the people have no need of instruc. tion; they already know too much; they cannot all be legislators and judges and generals; the great mass must work for a living, and they need no other knowledge than what is sufficient for that purpose. Others will tell you it is very well for the people to get as much education as they can; but it is their own concern, the state has nothing to do with it; every parent, out of regard to his offspring, will give them what he can, and that will be enough.

I will not say how far this manner of treating the subject is proper even in Europe, whence we borrowed it. But I will say that nothingismore preposterous in America. It is directly contrary to the vital principles of our constitutions; and its inevitable tendency is to destroy them. A universal system of education is so far from being a matter of indifference to the public, under our social conpact, that it is incontestably one of the first duties of the government, one of the highest interests of the nation, one of the most sacred rights of the individual, the vital fluid of organized liberty, the precious aliment without which your republic cannot be supported.

I do not mean that our legislators should turn pedagogues; or send their commissioners forth to discipline every child in this nation. Neither do I mean to betray so much temerity as to speak of the best mode of combining a system of public instruction. But I feel it my duty, on this occasion, to use the freedom to which I am accustomed, and suggest the propriety of bringing forward some system that shall be adequate to the object. I am clearly of opinion, that it is already within the power of our legisla tive bodies, both federal and provincial; but if it is not, the people ought to placė

it there, and see that it is exercised. It is certain that the plan, if properly ar. ranged and wisely conducted, would not be expensive. And there is no doubt of its absolute irresistible necessity, if we mean to preserve either our representative principle, or our federal union.

It is not intended that every citizen should be a judge, or a general, or a legis lator. But every citizen is a voter; it is essential to your institutions that he should be a voter; and if he has not the instruction necessary to enable him to discritninate between the characters of men, to withstand the intrigues of the wicked, and to perceive what is right, he immediately becomes a tool for knaves to work with; he becomes both an object and an instrument of corruption; his right of voting becomes an injury to himself, and a nuisance to society. It is in this sense that the people are said to be "their own worst enemies." Their freedom itself is found to be an insupportable calamity; and the only consolation (a dreary consolation indeed) is, that it cannot last long. The time is fast approaching, when the United States will be out of debt, if no extraordinary call for money to repel foreign aggression should intervene. Our surplus revenue already affords the means of entering upon the system of public works, and beginning to discharge our duty in this respect. The report of the secretary of the treasury on these works, which is, or ought to be, in the hands of every citizen, will show their feasibility as to the funds; and it develops a part of the advantages with which the system inust be attended. But neither that distinguished statesman, nor any other human being, could detail and set forth all the advantages that would arise from such a system carried to its proper extent. They are incalculably great, and unspeakably various. They would bind the States together in a band of union that every one could perceive, that every one must cherish, and nothing could destroy. This of itself is an advantage so great, if considered in all its consequences, that it seems almost useless to notice any other. It would facilitate the means of instructing the people; it would teach them to cherish the union as the source of their happiness, and to know why it was so; and this is a considerable portion of the education they require. It would greatly increase the value of property, and the wealth of individuals, and thereby enable

them to augment the public revenue. But what is more, it would itself augment the revenue in a more direct manner by enhancing the value of the public lands; which would thus sell faster, and bring a higher price. In this manner, the first monies laid out by the government on roads and canals, would be a reproductive property; it would be constantly sending back more money into the trea. sury than was taken from it for this pur pose. So that all the advantages of every kind, public and private, present and future, commercial and economical, physical, moral, and political, would be so much clear gain. There would be nothing destroyed but errors and prejudices, nothing removed but the dangers that now threaten our invaluable institutions.

To do equal justice, and give satisfaction to the people in every state in the Union, the sums to be expended in each year should be distributed in the several States, according to their population. This is the general understanding among the friends of the system; and the secretary has not neglected to keep it in view in his luminous report.

Our present legislators ought to consider, how much true glory would redound to them from being the first to arrange and adopt such a system. How different from the false glory commonly acquired by the governments of other countries. Louis XIV. toiled and tormented himself, and all Europe, through a long life, to acquire glory. He made unjust wars, obtained many victories, and suffered many defeats. He augmented the standing armies of France from forty thousand to two hundred thousand men; and thus obliged the other powers of Europe to augment their means of defence in that proportion; means which have drained the public treasuries, and oppressed the people of Europe ever since. And what is the glory that now remains to the name of Louis XIV? Only the canal of Languedoc. This indeed is a title to true glory; and it is almost the only subject on which his name is now mentioned in France but with opprobrium and detestation.

The government of England expended one hundred and thirty-nine millions sterling in the war undertaken to subjugate the American colonies. This sum, about six hundred millions of dollars, lard out in the construction of canals, at twenty thousand dollars a mile, would have

made

made thirty thousand miles of canal; about the same length of way as all the present post-roads in the United States and their territories; or a line that would reach once and a quarter round the globe of this earth, on the circle of the equator. Or if the same sum could be distributed in a series of progressive improvements, a part in canals, and a part in roads, bridges, and school-establishments, beginning with two millions a-year, according to the proposition of the secretary of the treasury and increasing, as the surplus revenue would increase, to ten or fifteen milions a-year, it would make a garden of the United States, and people it with a race of men worthy to enjoy it; a garden extending over a Continent :-giving a glorious example to mankind of the operation of the true principles of society, the principles recognized in your government: Many persons now in being, might live to see this change effected; and most of us might live to enjoy it in anticipation, by seeing it begun.

The greatest real embarrassinent we labor under at present, arises from our commercial relations; the only point of contact between us, and the unjust governments of Europe. By their various and violent aggressions, they are constantly disturbing our repose, and causing us considerable expenses. In this case what is to be done? We cannot by compact, expect to obtain justice, nor the liberty of the seas from those governments; it is not in the nature of their organisation. Shall we think of overpowtring them in their own way, by a navy stronger than theirs; brutal force against brutal force, like the ponderous powers of Europe among themselves? This at present is impossible; and if it were possible, or whenever it should be possible, it would be extremely impolitic; it would be dangerous, if not totally destructive, to all our plans of improvement, and even to the government itself.

Has then a beneficent Providence, the God of order and justice, pointed out another mode of defence, by which the resources of this nation may be reserved for works of peace, and the advancement of human happiness? Has the genius of science and of art, raised up a new Archimedes to guide the fire of heaven against the fleets that may annoy us? I cannot but hope it has; not by the ardent mirror; but by means altogether more certain, less dependent on external circumstances, capable of varying and MONTHLY Mac. No. 194.

accommodating their mode of attack and defence to all the variety of positions and movements common to ships of

war.

I know not how far I may differ in opinion from those among you who may have turned their attention to the subject to which I now allude; or whether any person present has really investigated it. But I should not feet easy to lose the present occasion (the only one that my retired life renders it probable I shall ever have of addressing yon) to express my private opinion that the means of submarine attack, invented and proposed by one of our citizens, carries in itself the eventual destruction of naval tyranny. I should hope and believe, if it were taken up and adopted by our government, subjected to a rigid and regular course of experiments, open and public, so that its powers might be ascertained and its merits known to the world, it would save this nation from future foreign wars, and deliver it from all apprehension of having its commercial pursuits and its peaceful improvements ever after interrupted. It might rid the seas of all the buccaneers, both great and small, that now infest them; it might free mankind from the scourge of naval wars, one of the greatest calamities they now suffer, and to which I can see no other end.

These opinions may be thought hazardous. But I beg my fellow citizens to believe that I have examined the subject, or I should not hazard them. Several of the great arts that are now grown familiar in common life were once thought visionary. This fact should render us cautious of making up our judgment against an object like this, in the higher order of mechanical combinations, before we have well considered it. With this observation I drop the subject; or rather I resign it into abler hands; the hands of those who have the power, as well as inclination, to pursue the best good of our beloved country.

I should not have introduced it in this place were it not for its immediate connexion with the means of commencing and prosecuting those vast interior in provements which the state of our nation so imperiously demands, which the heroes of our revolution, the sages of our early councils, the genius of civilization, the cause of suffering humanity, have placed within our power, and confided to our charge.

E

For

I

For the Monthly Magazine.

DR. OLINTHUS GREGORY's Second ANSWER to the EDINBURGH REVIEWERS. N your valuable Magazine for August last, you inserted a letter which was refused admission in the Edinburgh Review, and in which I proved that the writer of the Critique, in that work, on the Account of Steam, Engines, in the second volume of my "Mechanies,” had, in the short compass of a note of ten lines, told four positive falsehoods. The truth of this charge is now admitted by the Edinburgh Reviewers, so far as relates to two of their assertions; they deny my charge in relation to the third assertion, by telling a new falsehood; and palliate the fourth, by admitting that their language was ambi guous. There is, therefore, (to adopt the wary language of these scientific defamers) a probability falling short of certainty by a quantity incalculably small," that the Edinburgh Reviewers will be regarded, by every attentive reader, as self-convicted liars. What right they can have to plead inadvertence, in bar of this conclusion, when deliberately and explicitly charging e with a general habit of, and particular instances of, plagiarism, I am very willing the public should determine.

I am sorry, Sir, to occupy your valuable pages with my personal concerns. If the Edinburgh Reviewers, who have long ago forfeited all reputation for justice, honour, and liberality, had not renounced that of courage also; if they had dared to admit into their own work, my refutation of their own calumnies,. I should have sought no other redress. Not satisfied, however, with denying me, in the first instance, the right of vindicating my fame as an author, they have attacked my character as a man, and publicly pledged themselves to allow me no opportunity of defending it, and to make no retraction of their charges, though I should succeed in proving them false! As far as their power extends, my reputation, it seems, is to perish. Happily, it is not within their power. Despicable vanity, to suppose it was, or that I should suffer them to escape with impunity! Though they shrink from meeting me,on equal terms, they are still within my reach. There are tribunals in this enlightened country, at which literary assassins, however cowardly or ferocious, may be compelled to appear. I trust, Sir, in your liberality, for permission to bring my cause

before one of the most eminent and impartial of those tribunals, and in that of your numerous readers, for a patient hearing.

At the end of nearly eight months, from their receipt of my first letter, the Edinburgh Reviewers have honoured me with an elaborate reply; a deviation, in my favour, from their usual and safer plan of total silence, for which I am duly grateful. In this reply of ten pages, they have distributed artful inisrepresentations, and direct falsehoods, with that profusion, which may be cxpected from persons who have abun dance of one kind of commodity at command, and very little of any other: Quo modo pyris vesci jubet Calubar hospes. A complete answer to such a letter as theirs, would be far too voluminous to appear in a miscellaneous Journal shall only trouble you with a short statement, which I hope you can immediately insert, and which the extensive circulation of your Magazine may render as public as the slanders it refutes.

I

Even thus far I should have thought it needless to intrude my concerns into your work, could I depend upon the same candour, good sense, and reflection, in every reader of the Edinburgia Review, which I have met with on this occasion, among my own literary acquaintance. One of my friends, a gentleman of the highest literary and scientific reputation," so forcibly describes the impression produced upon his mind by the Edinburgh Reviewers' epistle, that I beg leave to quote part of his letter. 66 the

"I have just read," says he, Edinburgh Reviewers' epistle to you; and I think you may very readily rest satisfied with the general result of the public judgment, which must necessarily be open to the following facts, even from the Reviewers' own statement.

1. That the Edinburgh Reviewers have found the effect of your former exposure of their misrepresentations to be so powerful, as to feel and acknowledge the necessity of. making a reply; and thus, to take a step they have never taken before, one which

must

His name I suppress, not to expose him unnecessarily to the rancour of the Edinburgh Reviewers. The praise they have bestowed upon one of his works, would be no security, against their virulent abuse in future, nor even against their condemnation of the same work, if we may judge from their treatment of Pinkerton's "Geography," after they had quarrelled with the proprietors of that book.